Blaen Bran Community Woodland is made up of two areas :
Blaen Bran Farm (and source of the Bran Brook)
Coed Gwaun-y-Fferiad (or Wood of the Priest’s Moor in English)
Blaen Bran farm was built into the mountainside and probably looked much like many of the other mountain farms of that time. I’m sure many generations of families lived there scraping a living from their animals grazing on the mountain pasture.
The importance of this farm is in its name – Blaen Bran, right by the source of the Bran brook which runs down this small valley in to Afon Llwyd river. The valley became known as Cwmbran, hence the name of our town.
All that remains of the farm is a few stone walls, some old beech trees which probably grew in hedgerows and part of one wall of the farm house.
A map from many years back is shown here and was obtained from the council archives. You can click on it to see a readable version!